Packing garments such as suits and the like has long been a problem, and the ability to carry an unwrinkled spare business suit in a small bag would be particularly welcome to the contemporary traveler. Garment bags and partitioned suitcases are the only means available to meet this need, but neither provides a truly satisfactory way to pack garments for traveling without wrinkling, and neither is particularly compact. If a garment is packed, any looseness allows wrinkles which soon become unsightly creases. A garment bag might be adequate if it could be kept separate, hanging vertically, and never folded but, even so, only a bare minimum of clothing could be packed without wrinkling. A traveler coping with the realities of extended trips and baggage handling is not permitted such luxuries. Partitioned suitcases, where a garment is folded on, or under a hinged partition, are also ineffective. When a garment is packed in this manner, the bulky, multiple layers of fabric bunch together, allowing loose folds, which become creases by the end of the trip. Neither garment bags nor suitcases are provided with positive supporting means for holding a garment flat. To the contrary, where conventional wire clothes hangers have shoulder support bars which are angled downwardly at thirty degrees, the captive clothes hangers used in luggage have relatively square shoulder bars. This conserves packing space but causes the skirt of a suit coat or jacket to flare and wrinkle rather than hang straight and fold flat.
Cowan, U.S. Pat. No. 2,856,110, discloses a garment support in the form of a three part hinged panel. A suit coat or jacket and pair of trousers, placed on a wire hanger in the conventional manner, ie. with the trousers folded across the cross bar of the hanger, inside of the coat, is laid on the panel and folded together with the panel. The skirt of the jacket is held between two parts of the hinged panel, and to that extent, the garment is better supported than if simply folded over a partition. Bulky, multiple layers of fabric are folded however, just as when a garment is folded over a hinged partition. Further, Cowan does not address flaring and wrinkling of the jacket skirt.
A first object of the present invention therefore, is to provide apparatus for folding garments flat so as to be compactly packed for traveling. A second object is to support the garments so as to maintain the flat condition and prevent wrinkling when packed and a third object is to provide this apparatus as a complete, self contained unit, which can be packed in virtually any traveling bag.
Accordingly, the present invention comprises an open frame which allows flat folding and refolding of trousers or a skirt while providing rigid support for each folded portion thereof and, furthermore, provides a frame for similar flat folding and supporting a suit coat or jacket over the folded trousers or skirt. The layers of fabric in a fold are thus reduced to a minimum and each portion of a suit or garment is held securely ill a flat position so that it cannot shift or wrinkle in packing.
Where it has become accepted practice to have a shoulder bar angle of thirty degrees (an included angle of one hundred twenty degrees) in conventional closet clothes hangers and less in luggage, the inventor has found that flat folding of a jacket is facilitated by a somewhat greater angle. Thirty degrees allows a suit coat or jacket to hang with the skirt unwrinkled and the front buttoned, as is desirable in a closet. A somewhat greater angle of approximately thirty-five degrees (an included angle of one hundred ten degrees) will allow the left and right sides of the skirt to overlap and the shoulders of the sleeves to rotate forward so that the jacket will fold flat more readily. While this improvement is not essential to the practice of the invention, results are improved thereby.